For most contemporary art critics, the term “decorative” is pejorative, implying that a work, while perhaps pretty, lacks content and depth. The decorative arts, it is commonly assumed, have two features that are at odds with what we think of as fine art: decorative art is typically associated with function – glasses, plates, bowls, jars, carpets, clothes – and its purpose is to project a style or mood rather than to transmit meaning and incite dialogue.

Approaching the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, designed by Bruce Kuwabara and his team at KPMB Architects, one immediately encounters an elevated cube cantilevered towards Queen’s Park with fritted-glass windows set back from the building’s elegant limestone facade.